


just your kind of zero

by patho (ghostsoldier)



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Dunwall Noir, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 03:41:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostsoldier/pseuds/patho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say the enemy of your enemy is your friend. </p><p>Daud and the priest share a lot of enemies.</p><p>A Dunwall Noir fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just your kind of zero

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohnoitsdee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohnoitsdee/gifts).



> This one’s for [Dee](http://ohnoslowbro.tumblr.com), because she drew [an absolutely amazing picture](http://ohnoslowbro.tumblr.com/post/47524935648) and I promised I’d write this if she did. I apologize for the lack of noir flair in the narrative style itself. Noir, it seems, does not come easily to me. Ah well.
> 
> (This is a fun sandbox. Y’all should [come play in it](http://dunwallnoir.tumblr.com/)!)

They're both drunk, the first time it happens. Stupid exhausted from adrenaline letdown and lack of sleep, nervy from being shot at by at least three different people over the course of the day. Daud drives them both back to his office without offering to drop Martin off first, and Martin makes no protest. Just leans his head back against the headrest and closes his eyes and breathes. Every time Daud looks over, what catches his eye is the white slash of Martin's collar and the rapid thrum of his carotid, which is just visible beneath the day-old dusting of stubble.

Martin trails after him as he heads up to his office. The sign on the door says, "Closed." It says that a lot these days. And he trails after him as he heads straight through the office and into the shabby apartment tucked away in the back. Trails after him into the dingy kitchenette, where Daud pulls a bottle of Morley whiskey down from the top of the fridge. Daud swigs directly from the bottle and then offers it to Martin, and instead of dissembling the way he normally does Martin just silently takes it and knocks back a healthy shot.

It's the first time Martin's been back to this part of the office-slash-apartment. That's probably significant in some way. Daud hasn't bothered to turn on the lights. The shadows beneath Martin's eyes are dark as the sky beyond the grimy living room window. As they pass the bottle back and forth, Martin's hands shake, minute tremors that speak of too much adrenaline and too little food or sleep. Daud finds himself wanting to wrap his hands around Martin's just to hold them _still_ a while. It's a weird thing to want. He knows it's a weird thing to want.

Every time Martin takes the bottle back, Daud watches the way his throat moves when he swallows. Clerical collar resting snug right over his hyoid, the exact place Daud would put his thumbs and _press_ if he wanted to choke the life from him. 

Daud wants to put his hands there. He doesn't want to press down.

The rain rattling against the windows sounds too much like gunfire for his liking. The glow of the streetlights filtering in through the blinds paints the inside of the little apartment with stripes of dim orange. Daud is uncomfortably aware of his near-empty fridge and the takeout boxes piled high in the trash, the dishes -- rinsed but otherwise unwashed -- stacked in the sink, the old newspapers on the coffee table in the room that doubles as his living room and bedroom. The dust motes in the air and the stains on the nubby carpet, the general ground-in _filthiness_ of the place. No amount of baking soda or vinegar or lemon juice could ever get it clean. You could scrub for a hundred years and it would still look exactly the way it does now, low and grimy and _mean_. 

Daud was born in a place like this, and he’ll probably die in one too. The priest, in his crisp ecclesiastical blacks and gleaming white collar, doesn’t belong at all.

Daud clears his throat. “You can take the bed,” he says. It's the first words they’ve spoken to each other since before they got in the car. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Martin looks into the other room. The couch – to call it that is charitable, seeing as it can barely seat two people comfortably – is covered in heavy books and case files from the office next door. There’s a blanket thrown haphazardly over the back and a small pillow wedged sadly in the corner. It couldn’t look any more inhospitable if it tried.

“Right,” Martin says slowly. “The couch.”

Daud ignores the dubiousness in his voice in favor of heading into the room itself to tug the Murphy bed down from the wall. It’s old and creaks alarmingly, the way it does every night when he remembers to sleep in his own bed instead of passing out over his desk. Martin probably won’t have a comfortable night, but it’ll definitely be better than the couch.

It takes Daud much too long to get the bed folded out from the wall and secured. He must be more drunk than he thought.

And when he straightens, Martin is _right_ behind him. Watching him with dark eyes and an unreadable expression.

“You saved my life today,” Martin says quietly.

Daud grimaces. Remembers, all too clearly, the whine of the bullet as it passed far too close to their heads. The shocking solidity of Martin’s body beneath his. The way Martin smelled, like wool and soap and skin and sweat, the faint hint of burnt sage and cedar smoke. How he’s spent the time since trying not to think about putting his hands on Martin’s neck and pushing his thumbs past the clerical collar. Holding them over Martin’s hyoid bone. _Not_ pressing down.

“It’s a bad habit,” Daud says after much too long. His voice is surprisingly clear. “I should probably look into quitting.”

A pale smile passes over Martin’s lips. “Like your smoking?”

Daud has explained to Martin, at great length, his plans to quit. He has several; he’s _very_ good at planning. And, since he met Martin, he’s been smoking more than ever.

There’s probably a connection there.

“Exactly like that,” Daud agrees, and then watches his own hands come up to carefully slide Martin’s clerical collar free from his shirt. Martin’s breath catches, but he makes no move to stop him. Nor does he move when Daud just as carefully molds his palm against the column of his throat and rests his right fore- and index fingers over the wild flutter of his pulse. It beats against the pads of his fingers like a bird throwing itself against a pane of glass.

If Daud pressed down, or if he found the matching pulse on the other side of Martin’s neck with his thumb, if he pressed down and _held_ it…

Daud could kill Martin a thousand times over with his bare hands alone. He knows Martin is aware of this. Martin already knows entirely too many things about Daud, and his deep well of violence _in potentia_ is but one of them. But Martin merely holds his gaze, the way he did the night he blew into Daud’s office like an ill-fated wind. His expression says, “I dare you,” and beneath Daud’s fingers his pulse speeds up.

Daud’s pretty sure it’s wrong to want to fuck a priest.

He’s also pretty sure he doesn’t care.

“Martin…” 

He’s unsure if he means it as a warning or a threat. Then Martin moves forward and Daud’s hand falls away, and then neither of them are talking anymore.

They’re drunk, Daud tells himself as Martin’s mouth finds his. People make stupid mistakes when they’re drunk. He’s cursed with thinking at least three steps ahead under most circumstances. As he attacks the neat black buttons of Martin’s shirt, he’s already holding the cold gray light of dawn in his mind. Planning the damage control, so they can look each other in the eye after all is said and done.

_We were drunk. It was a mistake. We were drunk. It was a mistake._

Martin kisses like he’s starving for it. He’s not shy about using his teeth, and he bites Daud’s lower lip, groans into his mouth, digs his fingers into Daud’s hair. He kisses like a man who’s just found water after forty years of wandering the desert, and it’s impossible not to respond in kind. The white buzz settling in Daud’s spine has nothing to do with booze and everything to do with the hands fumbling with his suspenders and his belt buckle, with the unashamed greediness of Martin’s kiss. Daud’s whole body _burns_ , the way the whiskey did earlier. It’s been ages since he fucked anything but his own right hand. The desire to bury himself in the priest isn’t a new one by any means, but he wants it so badly right now it makes his fucking _teeth_ hurt.

He shoves Martin’s black button-down off his shoulders, peels his undershirt off next. Martin’s lean and more muscular than Daud expected a priest to be, although his belly’s still on the softer side. Dark hair on his chest, darker hair arrowing down from his navel. He’s more scarred than Daud would’ve expected a priest to be as well. When Daud trails his fingers over the more pronounced scars, Martin’s breath hitches. He leans into the touch like a stray cat.

“Interesting life you’ve led,” Daud says, thumbing a rounded, puckered scar that looks suspiciously like an old bullet wound. Martin chuckles, hauls Daud back in for another deep, sloppy kiss, and grinds against his hip.

“It’s gotten a hell of a lot more interesting since you were in it,” Martin mutters against his mouth, and that’s just…that’s—

(“We were drunk,” he imagines himself telling Martin the next morning. Imagines Martin picking up his clerical collar from where Daud dropped it the night before, imagines the careful neutrality in his expression and the way he won’t quite meet Daud’s eyes. “We were drunk,” Daud imagines himself saying, and in his mind he adds, “It was a mistake. Nothing’s changed. It won’t happen again.”)

Martin grunts when Daud pushes him back on the bed. They’re drunk, but they’re not drunk enough. Not remotely drunk enough. The way Martin smirks while watching Daud strip out of his own clothes is going to be burned onto his retinas until the end of fucking time. It’s a mistake – it has to be, nothing that feels this good could be anything but a mistake – but right now it doesn’t feel like one. 

The bed utters a rusty squawk of protest when Martin pulls Daud down as well. Daud shifts so he’s not lying entirely on top of him and catches Martin’s mouth again. Martin’s cock fits nicely in his hand, and he likes the way Martin’s breathing goes harsh and ragged when he strokes him. Groaning into the kiss, not even kissing Daud so much as mouthing at his lips and his cheek and his jaw, digging his heels into the thin mattress and his fingers into Daud’s back.

“You haven’t…even bought me dinner yet,” he pants. Daud buries his startled laugh against Martin’s neck and then starts following scars with his mouth, just because he can. His tongue makes Martin arch, but his teeth make his whole body _jerk_. Daud holds Martin’s hips down and trails bites over his collarbones, the muscle of his chest, his soft belly and the sharp jut of his hipbones. He rocks his own hips against the bed at the way Martin can’t quite contain his choked, bitten-off noises, and at the way Martin scrabbles at Daud’s shoulders and tries to curl around him.

Daud’s so intent on dragging more of those noises out of him that he’s honestly surprised when Martin manages to flip them over. Martin hovers over him, eyes bright, breath in tatters. The stripes of the streetlamps make him look wild and not entirely real. Daud suddenly, desperately, wants to lick the sweat from the hollow of his throat and so he does, and Martin makes a low, guttural noise and pushes back very deliberately against Daud’s cock. Does it again when Daud’s breath goes stuttering out of him.

He can’t mean--

Martin bends down, catches Daud’s lower lip between his teeth. His hips move restlessly, his nails scraping lightly over Daud’s chest and stomach. He breathes, “Got any slick?”

Apparently, that’s _exactly_ what he means.

They probably shouldn’t. Daud has neighbors. Not a lot, but enough, and even though it’s late he’s sure at least one of them saw Martin follow him up to his office apartment. Wonders if they saw, even at that distance, the flash of white at Martin’s throat among all the black. 

They really shouldn't.

Martin’s cock rubs against his belly every time he moves. Daud exhales. His voice feels like it’s made of cigarettes and sandpaper. “End table.”

It’s not much of an end table. Rickety, covered in small stacks of paper like the rest of the flat surfaces in his apartment. The light he optimistically put there for reading doesn’t even work half the time. Amidst all the clutter is a small bottle of hand lotion, which…well, gets used for rather more solitary situations than this one. Martin presses a hard, fierce kiss against Daud’s mouth and half-rolls off him to reach it. 

Even over the sounds of their own breathing and the dim roar of traffic outside, the little snap of Martin popping the cap open sounds terribly loud in the still of the apartment.

It turns out that Martin’s impatient. He rocks back against Daud’s fingers with his eyes screwed tight and his mouth open, fingers clawing at the rough sheets. He’s shockingly warm inside, and there’s no possible way he can be ready when he finally opens his eyes again and rasps, “Enough of this. I want _you_.” Hair sticking to his forehead, the sheen of sweat on his skin. He can’t possibly be ready but Daud pushes into him anyhow, inch by agonizingly tight inch, and Martin’s body forms a taut comma over his and he sinks his teeth into Daud’s shoulder. Even though he’s shaking, he doesn’t ask Daud to stop, not once.

“Shh,” Daud says. Kisses damp and salt from Martin’s temple, runs a hand up and down his back. Reaches between them with his other hand to slowly stroke Martin back into hardness. “I’ve got you. I’ve—“ and then Martin lifts his hips, slides back again, and whatever he was about to say is lost in a white haze of a pleasure and a startled groan.

“Fuck,” Martin says unsteadily. Braces his hands on either side of Daud’s head, pushes first into his fist and then back onto his cock. Moans. “Oh, fuck. Daud, _fuck_ \--“

Daud pushes up and kisses him. Digs his fingers much too hard into Martin’s hips to help him move, and he didn’t think it would be possible for them to fall into a good rhythm so easily, for Martin to feel so appallingly good. The man _grates_ on him. His smirks and his secrets and his scars, his talk of God and his apparently genuine belief. The way he knows what Daud is but keeps trusting him anyhow. 

This shouldn't fucking _work_. This should be awful. They should be tired and frustrated and throwing in the towel. They should be quietly agreeing to chalk this up to alcohol and never speak of it again, because there’s a long list of things they should be doing and fucking isn’t one of them. Neither is moaning into Martin’s mouth, or rocking up into him so hard the bed rattles loud enough to wake the goddamn dead. Daud spits into his own hand to ease its glide over Martin’s cock and he strokes him faster, in time with his own movements. He thumbs the head, and Martin suddenly arches and cries out. Comes all over Daud’s chest and stomach. 

They shouldn’t be doing _any_ of these things. 

Martin’s slumped over him, boneless and panting. He hums when Daud rolls them over, wraps his arms around Daud’s shoulders and his legs around Daud’s hips. Murmurs encouragement against Daud’s mouth. His kiss is wet, openmouthed, easy; he swallows the sounds Daud makes and urges him on. His heels dig into Daud’s ass, his hands are in Daud’s hair. He kisses Daud like he means it.

“Shit,” Daud chokes out, “Martin, I’m—“

And the world goes white. 

*

Dawn creeps in gray and merciless between the battered metal blinds. Daud scrubs his hands over his face and groans. His head throbs like a strobe light. Next to him, Martin’s burrowed in the blankets, and he makes unhappy noises of protest when Daud none-too-gently shoves him in the shoulder. “Mrgh.”

A moment later, he sits bolt upright. Stares at Daud with wide, bloodshot eyes. “What…”

In an emotionless monotone, Daud recites, “We were drunk. It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”

Something he hadn’t realized was open in Martin’s expression slams shut immediately.

“Ah,” Martin rasps. “Right.”

They dress silently. Martin finds his clerical collar on the floor and stares at it for a very long time before he finally puts it back on. Daud drives him home, and they don’t look each other in the eye the whole time.

When it happens again, three days later, they don’t even make it to Daud’s apartment, or out of their clothes. Daud fucks Martin over his desk, gasps into the soft hair at the nape of his neck, tries and fails to keep from groaning Martin’s name when he comes. Martin leaves a perfect semicircle of bruises in Daud’s forearm where he bites down to muffle his own cries. Daud’s desk ends up a mess. Paper everywhere, the plant knocked onto the floor. The dark blot of spilled dirt on the carpet looks like a spray of arterial blood.

Afterwards, Martin fixes his clothes and glares at Daud and says, “If you say this was a mistake again, I will fucking _shoot_ you.”

“But it _was_ a mistake,” Daud wants to say. The words stick in his throat. He rests his fingers lightly over the pulse of Martin’s carotid, just above his collar, and doesn’t say anything at all.

*

it feels like it should be a mistake, every time.

And every time, Daud still can’t bring himself to call it one.


End file.
